Jimmy Page Loses Planning Battle with Neighbor

Jimmy Page found himself the loser in another planning battle with a neighbor over proposed changes near the London mansion he’s owned for 46 years.

The Led Zeppelin guitarist spent five years in a dispute with Robbie Williams, arguing that the pop star’s basement redevelopment plans could damage the integrity of his Tower House home.

While the possibility of further disagreement remains, Page recently took action against businessman Sir Harvey McGrath, who wanted to build three 20" wooden trellises in his back garden.

“I urge the council to refuse the application as having the potential for harmful impact on living conditions in the Tower House,” Page wrote in March. “I use the area to listen to and scrutinize recordings, requiring my full concentration with no distracting noise and/or vibration from other sources, for meetings away from the main house and for recorded interviews where naturally there cannot be any constant background noise.”

“Our client’s property would be directly and adversely impacted by the application's proposals,” Page’s lawyers said in a letter to the Royal Borough of Chelsea and Kensington Council, according to the Daily Mail. They argued that one of the trellises might require attachment to a wall of Page’s home.

But council planning director Sue Foster dismissed the objection, saying in a decision notice. “The second trellis would be fixed to freestanding posts, set away from the side listed building by 0.3m," she noted. "The height of this trellis would not exceed the height of the existing neighbor’s trellis.

"Given that there are many examples of timber trellises within the vicinity, the proposed works would preserve the character and the appearance of the property. … There would be no material effect upon the external appearance of the neighboring Grade I listed building, or its setting, its structural integrity, or its special historic interest.”

Last year Page explained, “I have been the custodian of the house, and on my watch I feel that I have got to do everything with all these sorts of haphazard things … that really it’s my duty while it’s my watch.”